15 years of age. I support a football team. It is called Partick Thistle. There is nothing funny abo...
15 years of age. I support a football team. It is called Partick Thistle. There is nothing funny about this.
Member since:19.01.2001
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Let it be is generally considered to be among the Beatles worst albums. Although I would probably agree with this statement, I would also say that it is still an excellent record. It is often seen as the last Beatles album. In fact Abbey Road was recorded after Let it be and I see it to be the last final full Beatles LP.
During the recordign of this album, the fab four turned a bit sour towards each other and the beatles myth was tarnished in the publics eyes through the feature film ‘Let It Be’, which exposed what they were really like. The sessions ended in stalemate, with the four pretty much abandoning the production process, so Phil Spector was brought in to make sense of reams of tape, givign it the ‘phil spector touch’ of averageness. Well, I’m exagerrating, but his influence was large how many tracks turned out and I believe he spoiled some songs with his addition of female voclas and orchestrations as back up, which was not the bealtes way of doing things. It was a general vibe from the public and the Bealtes themselves that this album was a disappointment. Again I cannot argue with this, but I would have to say that it merely does nto compare favourably with their other 67-70 albums, whereas it looks good compared to the work of any other pop artists, at the time or since. The very fact that it was made by the bealtes
makes it by default brilliant, but I believe the presence of certain songs more than justifies a 4 star rating and seal it’s place in rock history
One observation I would make, however, is that it is the only album on which the bealtes look less than invulnerable. It seems here that they are not superhuman, and they are capable of making non-incredible music. Not that it’s bad of course, it’s just… a bit less omnipotent.
The opener, ‘Two of us’, has no problems. Paul uses a ploy common to him throughout his song writing career, of creating a good chorus, and only really breaking it up with a bridge, usually played twice, in which the rhythm is changed. A large amount of his songs adhere to this template, many of his best including, Hey jude, When I’m sixty four, For no one, Yesterday, and many others.
‘Dig a pony’ has John wailing about something or other. I think this song is in line with the many emotional performances on this album, it really does try to sound heartfelt. ‘Across the universe’ is a superb, atmospheeric song – something very odd has been done to those vocals! Some stunning chord shifts make this what it is, as well as the picturesque lyrics culminating in a triumphant ‘Nothin’s gonna change my world!’
‘I me mine’ is another very emotional song, George’s vocal performance seeming to show he had found his own distinctive style. So after the first four songs all being excellent, where does it all go wrong? ‘Dig it’ is, to be fair, a bit strange, but I think it still sounds good and quite compelling. ‘Let it be’ has Paul at his most cliched, but he was best that way anyhow, so who cares? Anyone who denies that this is a great song is clearly telling a fib. Plonked between two ‘not really proper’ songs, however, just highlights that it is a bit tacky. ‘maggie mae’ is silly, but good fun, if a bit lazy.
‘I’ve got a feeling’ is not exactly a Beatles classic, but it is passable. ‘One after 909’, on the other hand is, astonishingly rubbish, and it nearly spoils the whole album. It is very old fashioned, and it would have fitted quite nicely on to ‘Please Please me’ if it wasn’t not really up to the scratch there. The whole song smacks you in the face with an average fist, leaving you thinking ‘hmmm, that was a bit crap wasn’t it?’. Well yes, it was, but it’s the only properly weak song on the record so I think forgivable.
‘The long and winding road’ is a beautiful piece of music, and the only thing on the album that comes of well from Spector’s techniques. I rank it among the best Beatles songs, and certainly among Paul’s best. He employs the tactic I mentioned earlier, to great effect. It makes a superb ending to both the ‘blue’ album and ‘One’. On ‘Let it be’, however, things are different. ‘The long and winding road’ is a hard act to follow, and it shows with the rather lacklustre ‘For you blue’. This average song does not benefit from a live performance, and even George’s vocal seems half-hearted.
But the album still has a card up it’s sleeve, ending on a sensational high note, with the revolutionary ‘Get back’. This song proved that the Beatles could still cover new ground even in this late stage in their career. Abbey road went on to prove this emphatically, but anyway, ‘Get back’ still seems fresh and exciting after 30 years of wear and tear. The lead guitar part is a work of genius, and the famous G D chord slam is a famously catchy hook.
On the whole, however, it is easy to think that this album leaves you unsatisfied. That is fair to say, but I would say that it does not set out to satisfy, rather to impress. It can certainly do that, if perhaps, although it’s good parts are very good, it’s bad parts, namely ‘One after 909’ and ‘For you blue’ are pretty bad. The many speaking interludes, especially before and after ‘Let it be’ do seem a bit contrived, the Beatles, now that their omnipotence was wearing off, appearing for the first time, arrogant. Genius is allowed its nuances, as long as no faults are present, but they are present here. I would encourage any music fan to but this record, though, and enjoy it for what it is, a number of excellent songs, interspersed with a few average ones.
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